The Ordnance Survey's first edition six-inch map, drawn up in 1839, recorded it clearly enough: a roughly circular enclosure about 48 metres in diameter, the kind of feature that would once have defined a farmstead or enclosed a small settlement in early medieval Ireland. By the time the surveyors returned for the 1899 to 1902 revision, it had disappeared from the record entirely, either overgrown, partially levelled, or simply overlooked amid changing land use.

Enclosures of this type, sometimes called raths or ringforts depending on their construction, were once among the most common man-made features in the Irish landscape, numbering in the tens of thousands. They typically consisted of an earthen bank and external ditch forming a circular boundary, used to protect a family's dwelling and livestock. What makes the Dungarvan example quietly interesting is its partial incompleteness even on the 1839 map, where the south-western to north-north-western arc of the perimeter is not shown, suggesting that stretch had already degraded or been removed before the first surveyors arrived. A long, narrow pond lies roughly ten metres to the north-east, stretching about 155 metres in length, and a townland boundary runs east to west immediately north of the site. Two further enclosures sit about 130 metres to the north-east, hinting that this corner of the townland was once considerably more occupied than the present plantation of trees would suggest.